The vast majority of insurance policies, and, in particular, life insurance policies, are obtained through an insurance agent or broker who often represents multiple insurance companies. These brokers must track an array of products and underwriting requirements related to each individual insurance company. To complicate matters, the application forms that must be completed to apply for a policy vary by insurance company, state, and product. Because most brokers may only sell a few policies each year with any one insurance company, they lack the repetition and familiarity necessary to fully understand how to properly complete each insurance company's forms. This confusion may lead to data entry and processing errors, which result in costly underwriting delays and lost sales opportunities. Because the life insurance application is the trigger mechanism that initiates underwriting processes, such as paramedical exams, motor vehicle reports and physician statements, it is critical that the application be completed correctly.
Numerous solutions have been developed to address one or more aspects of the fulfillment of life insurance applications. U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2001/0049611 to Peach claims a fully automated system for storing insurance forms and permitting consumers to directly complete electronic insurance application forms. Unfortunately, consumers know less than brokers about completing life insurance applications. Systems that rely on consumers to properly complete insurance company's forms have simply generated more mistakes and underwriting delays than previously.
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2002/0120474 to Hele et al. claims a system for electronically obtaining an insurance application that can be completed without any broker interaction. Again, this system relies on a consumer fulfillment model, which continues to produce data entry errors and incomplete forms. Other automated systems for inputting data into an insurance application do exist in the industry. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,526 to Fuchs et al. provides a system and method of inputting client information into a database and provides contract printing capabilities. However, this method, specified for the property and casualty industry, does not reduce the data entry and processing errors made by brokers and therefore does not decrease the cost of issuing a life insurance policy.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system and method which is able to reduce the errors made by brokers in the processing of insurance applications and further which alleviates the need for each broker to be familiar with the state and product specific forms for each insurance underwriter.